Now Arsenal are one of the loves of my life. Every game that’s on TV I not only watch it, but I follow it on the Arseblog live blog! Just to make sure I’m not missing out on anything! Fanatic would nearly be what I’d describe myself as. This season has been a joyride. Occasionally the adrenaline rushes have been amazing, but other times, it has been downright out of control and dangerous to watch for health reasons. But then again, that’s what you do for love! I honestly can’t imagine myself doing anything else on match day. Now we had an amazing result yesterday against the Spuds and I have the great pleasure of being in London for it. I was in the vicinity of some Spuds fans in the Canadian bar in Covent Garden and to listen to their banter was great! They were 2-0 up and ‘loving’ Arsene for what he had done to Arsenal! I kept on finding it hilarious that our ‘dear’ north London rivals could love anyone that turned Arsenal into the powerhouse they are today. I mean, he has never allowed the Spuds to finish above us? Anyway, fast forward a couple of minutes and the real team were 5-2 ahead! I enjoyed the turn in their attitude to hating Wenger again! Once the final whistle went, I turned and pointed to the thing on their jersey and said “it must be terrible to be constantly reminded of what you are: Cocks.” The laughter from the United fans to the other side of me was brilliant! It was the first time the Spuds fans had quietened down for the whole amazing football spectacle.
Anyway! I digress slightly. The thing that I love at the moment floating about the interwebs is the positivity surrounding the club again. They’ve just announced a healthy profit up to the end of November, the players are tweeting, the bloggers are purring and the club is enjoying the moment with some of the Facebook photos that have gone up! For me, this is what it is all about! But I know it will not last. It bugs me immensely the vitriol and hatred out there between the gooner family in times of bad results but I point the finger at idiots for that. The media and internet are partially to blame for having created the monster that is instantaneous society. It allows too many people with not two functioning cells in their head tag something with a ‘#’ and suddenly the world knows what some idiot thinks. But some could argue that I too, am the idiot! They have a convincing argument also. I am eternally pessimistic and always try arguing for the system we have. Every season I put forward why we’re in with a good shout for the league title, the champions league and a cup in England! That’s my fault. I build up the assumption that we’ll win something. But when we suffer heartache around February time every season, I don’t turn to hatred. I try and assess why it has happened. I argue for what Wenger does right and wrong in my opinion and I am not of the opinion that he is above criticism, but when you compare what he is up against, what he has done and how he has transformed our Club – he deserves respect and not the vitriol he gets. I know there are clowns supporting every club but for a club with whom the word ‘stability’ is synonymous, I’d expect more from the people associating themselves with the Arsenal.
A few words on the game itself:
Magic. Amazing. Emotional.
It was a rollercoaster of a match! Van Persie was immense as always. Rosicky played as well as I think I ever saw him play in the red of Arsenal. I read a comment somewhere recently and forgive me for not referencing where, but the author commented that if he were to tell you in 2008 that Rosicky was going to be a pivotal player in 2012 you’d have thought him mad. While I see their point, I’d have to disagree. As a poster succinctly put it, Class Is Permanent. I think Rosicky just needed to get rid of the injury niggles and get a good run in the team. Wenger knew he had it in him. Wenger also knew Van Persie had it in him. His patience with some players does raise my eyebrows quite a bit but more times than not, we’ve seen why he persists with players. Denilson is an example of one of the bad apples. Diaby is just mightily unfortunate that he happened to be on a pitch with a douche like Dan Smith. But patience is key. I think Wenger’s bad calls in recent years have been his choice of captain. Gallas and Cesc were made captain in an attempt to placate their status as the key players in the teams they were in. This was wrong. Gallas showed what he was when he sat in the centre circle at Birmingham. Cesc was amazing for us. But he’s not the player that a Vieira, Adams or Van Persie is. Players not afraid to shift you from your comfort zone and kick your arse. The squad is far more together than it has been for a long time. Van Persie has been instrumental in organising player get togethers outside of the playing and training arena. The fight has been evident this season, not all the time, but at more times than in recent years. How many Arsenal teams would have felt sorry for themselves at 2-0 on Sunday? This time last year after the Carling Cup the team wouldn’t have come back. Two years ago neither. I think my point will be proven when we beat AC Milan at the Grove. I think we’ll score 5. But I think our defensive issues still surface and we’ll concede 1 or 2.
There’s that positive pessimist again! Quieten down will ya?!
